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Pathogens are organisms that cause disease, and like all organisms, they obey evolutionary principles. Pathogens that survive and reproduce successfully in a particular environment will have more offspring than those that are less successful, thereby passing on those traits that promote successful reproduction to future generations. The problem is that many pathogens change their environment in a way that makes their environment less hospitable for their own survival or reproduction. For example, the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) causes chytridiomycosis in its amphibian host, which may severely reduce the host population size to the point where few individuals survive. If the host population goes extinct, then there are no hosts for the fungal offspring to infect.

Fortunately for Bd, but unfortunately for amphibians, there are several ways out of this conundrum. One approach is a reduction in pathogenicity so that a pathogen’s host species is able to tolerate the infection (and of course, natural selection will at the same time favor an increase in the host species’ tolerance for the pathogen). A second approach is to broadcast a wide net by infecting many different species. That way if one host species goes extinct, there are always many other species to infect. Bd infects over 500 species of amphibians, and has been implicated in the extinction of over 100 amphibian species, and the severe decline of an additional 100 species.

Ben Scheele and his colleagues wanted to know why the endangered northern corroboree frog, Pseudophryne pengilleyi, was declining in southeastern Australia. Several previous studies showed that many corroboree frog populations declined or went extinct in that region over the past 20 years, while the abundant common eastern froglet, Crinia signifera, showed no signs of decline over the same time period. Pilot studies showed that eastern froglets were heavily and commonly infected with Bd. The researchers reasoned that eastern froglets could be acting as a reservoir for Bd, so that corroboree frogpopulations are being decimated by association with Bd-infected eastern froglets.

Female Pseudophryne pengilleyi. Credit: David Hunter.

Preliminary surveys indicated that the decline of corroboree frogswas not uniform across the study site; in fact there were some newly discovered populations that were doing very well. The researchers defined three types of sites in their research area. Absent sites (40 in total) had corroboree frogs in 1998, but the population went extinct by 2012. Declined sites (17 in total) had a greater than 80% decrease in abundance since 2000. New sites (25 in total) were newly discovered since 2012, and had much higher population densities than declined sites.

Study area in southeastern Australia, showing locations of Absent, Declined and New sites.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to visually distinguish an infected frog from an uninfected frog, at least until the few hours before death. But the researchers needed to be able to tell if a frog had chytridiomycosis. So they collected skin swabs from the frogs during the breeding season – only working at night to ensure cool humid conditions which minimized frog stress. They then did real time PCR on these samples to quantify the intensity of Bd infection.

Scheele and his colleagues had three important questions they were now prepared to answer. First, how prevalent is Bd in these two species? They found that infection rate was much higher in eastern froglets (79.4%) than in corroboree frogs (27.3%). The intensity of infection (measured by the number of fungal spores) was also much greater in eastern froglets than in corroboree frogs.

Second, do eastern froglets act as a reservoir for Bd, leading to infection and decline of corroboree frog populations? As we discussed earlier, the two species coexist at some sites, but not at others. If eastern froglets act as a reservoir for Bd, we would expect corroboree frogs to have higher infection rates at sites they share with eastern froglets, than they do at sites without eastern froglets. In support of this prediction, Bd prevalence in corroboree frogs was 41.4% at sites with eastern froglets, but only 2.6% at sites with no eastern froglets.

C. signifera (left) and P. pengilleyi spending quality time together in a P. pengilleyi nest. Credit: David Hunter.

Finally, the researchers want to identify conditions that will promote corroboree frog recovery. They approached this quantitatively by modeling the probability of a site being classified as Absent, Declined or New, in relation to eastern froglet abundance. Based on their survey data of 81 sites, those sites with the highest eastern froglet abundance are most likely to be classified as Absent (corroboree frog extinction), while sites with very few eastern froglets are most likely to be classified as New (thriving corroboree frog populations).

Probability of a site being classified as Absent, Declined or New, based on eastern frogletabundance. Data are log transformed. Dashed lines are 95% confidence intervals.

Scheele and his colleagues conclude that eastern froglets are a reservoir host for Bd, and have played a major role in the decline in corroboree frog populations. The researchers point out that, in general, areas lacking reservoir hosts may provide endangered species with refugia from infectious disease. For managing endangered species, conservation biologists should carefully monitor sites for the presence of reservoir hosts so they don’t reintroduce rare and endangered animals into locations where they will be attacked and killed by pathogens.